Catholic Church in Western WA to address Indigenous boarding school legacy

The Archdiocese of Seattle, a regional governing body of the Catholic Church in Western Washington, is working to comply with new nationwide priorities for how it engages with Native American communities. At the center of it all is addressing the negative impacts Native American Boarding schools have had on Native communities in the U.S.

And while the church is only recently coming to terms with this history and the lasting effects on Native peoples, these communities have ideas of their own about how to move forward.

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In 2022, Pope Francis shared a formal apology for the role of Catholic residential schools in Canada. In June of this year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, a national governing body of the Catholic Church, issued a formal apology, as well as guidance on how to move forward in addressing the negative impacts of boarding schools in the United States and grow it’s Native American ministry. Some of that includes finding ways to support Native family life, supporting initiatives that promote Native language and culture, bolstering health-equity efforts, and supporting Native education.

Last week, President Joe Biden also issued a formal apology about the use of residential schools in the U.S.

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The Archdiocese of Seattle is now incorporating the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ playbook into how they operate, and it will all start with a consultation board.

“We want the main protagonist of these [conversations] to be the Native Americans,” said Make Gallitelli from the Archdiocese’s intercultural department.

They’ve already begun some work in offering counseling services and healing retreats led by Indigenous people, said Deacon Carl Chilo, who works alongside Gallitelli in the intercultural department.

“Sometimes, it's a ministry of presence. We want to make sure that we are listening and really trying to meet the people where they are,” Chilo said. “With the history there, we cannot assume that we can fix things on the spot.”

Fifteen boarding schools received federal support in the state of Washington, according to a federal report. The earliest school opened in 1857. In total, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition reports 17 schools ran in the state, nearly half of which were religious.

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In their inception all schools were meant to assimilate Indigenous children. Until the 1970s, when new child welfare laws stepped up protections for Indigenous people, children were taken to these schools often against the will of their parents or tribes.

Survivors and their descendants said this practice, and these schools, led to language loss, destabilized family and cultural identities, and left children vulnerable to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

“Everything that was taken should be given back, and we can get it back ourselves,” said Barbara Lawrence, whose father was sent to one of these schools.

While her father survived and learned trade skills that he would use later in his life, some of his relatives died there, she said. She commended the president for his formal apology last week, and while she acknowledges the apology from the pope, she said the church still has more to do.

“I survived Catholicism. I'm no longer Catholic, but the Catholic Church has a much bigger debt,” Lawrence said.

She said students in all schools should be taught about the boarding school era. Lawrence works as an education specialist, currently building out a Suquamish tribal history curriculum for school districts on Suquamish Tribe land to teach their students. She’s also a storyteller sharing oral histories and lessons collected from elders.

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Sharing this history is also important to Pam James, who is a member of the Colville Tribes and who frequently ran away from St. Mary's Mission boarding school in Omak, Wash., in the 1970s. That school’s nuns told her there were only three types of professions for Native women: nurse, beautician, or teacher.

“When you're brought up in a very oppressive educational system, you have to understand that what they are teaching is what they want you to know, not necessarily what is the truth,” James said.

She now works to address historical and intergenerational trauma and create governmental relationships between the Colville Tribes and local government entities.

“Genocide happened for our people and the people that live in this United States, that they call home — that is our home,” she said. “They do not know this history, and it is vital that everyone knows this history and knows what happened. It should be mandated to be taught in every school throughout this land.”